ACKS 2 Kickstarter: Day 3

With over $250,000 raised, 1400 backers supporting the project, and 27 days left, this is a fantastic start to the ACKS 2 Kickstarter. This is already on the high-end of the OSR Kickstarters and positioning ACKS 2 as a significant player in the OSR space.

And this is a non-OGL and non-CC game, finally free of any chains to nebulous licenses and companies seriously lacking in ethics. There is a market in the OSR outside the OGL, CC, and even 5E. Years ago, that would be unthinkable, and non-OGL games in the OSR would be dismissed.

We are entering a new era of OSR games that are more the creator's vision of a world, magic, and monsters than the B/X view of those things. This is huge. We will see games maintain backward compatibility yet push forward with new ideas and worlds.

This is the fruit of the OGL scandal coming to bear; no longer will the SRD define fantasy gaming. For the longest time, the SRD served as the 'fantasy yardstick' by which many games were measured. If Wizards had left it alone, the SRD could have been the measuring stick permanently and kept D&D on the mountain's peak. Now, designers are thinking outside the SRD box, and gamers are looking for new ideas and worlds.

The ACKS 2 Kickstarter highlights the new market we are in, and the success of this Kickstarter will wake people up.

The game has changed.

ACKS 2: Version One Buyer's Guide

There was some great information about what ACKS 1 books posted by Autarch in the Kickstarter comments about compatibility with ACKS 2, and it is worth sharing here:

Player's Companion is fully incorporated into ACKS II with the exception of the Elf and Dwarf classes. The Dwarf classes are already in By This Axe, and the Elf classes will come in the elf book.

Domains at War Campaigns is fully incorporated into ACKS II, but Domains at War Battles is not.

Lairs & Encounters monster mechanics are incorporated into ACKS II, but the comprehensive lair listings and maps are not.

Heroic Fantasy Handbook is partially incorporated, with Fate Points, Heroic Codes, Heroic Funerals, and various combat rules. However, ceremonial magic, eldritch spells, and spellsinging are not included. These will appear in the upcoming "Chuck Dixon's Conan" sourcebook.

Barbarian Conquerors is not incorporated, nor is Aryx's Almanac of Unusual Magic.

The Axioms articles on Strongholds, Mercantile Ventures, and Thieves are incorporated, as is some of the information on Beastmen (which is revised and expanded). The Axiom articles on stocking the wilderness and running abstract dungeons and wilderness are fully incorporated.

I would say if you want to have the books that would be most useful to ACKS II, you'd want Domains at War: Battles, Lairs & Encounters, Capital on the Borderlands, Sinister Stone of Sakkara, Eyrie of the Dread, Ruins of Cyfindir, Sepulcher of the Sorceress Queen. If you need to run with eldritch magic ASAP, grab Heroic Fantasy, otherwise wait for the Conan book. You can definitely skip buying ACKS Core and ACKS Player's Companion and Domains at War: Campaigns.

Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/adventurer-conqueror-king-system-imperial-imprint-acks-ii/comments

This is a great buyer's guide for the new game and lets you focus on the books that would give you the best bang for the buck when getting started. The adventures, dwarf book, lair book, and tabletop wargame rules are the ones you can buy safely - and that makes sense.

ACKS 2: Kickstarter, Day One

 Wow. I am happy to see the ACKS 2 Kickstarter doing so well. On the first day, they raised over $200,000 and got over 1,100 supporters. They blew away that first-day goal, and this campaign looks to be entering the phase where the initial level of interest is causing an outside buzz. Some drives do moderately well, and it feels like an 'oh, that's nice' feeling to the campaign.

This one is raising eyebrows, and people are jumping in just because they see so many excited. There is a level of success you can achieve where you start to draw in interest from people who would not ordinarily jump in, and I saw this last happen with Shadowdark. I hope this does just as well, and even half as well would be mind-blowing.

A few observations:

The demand for non-OGL and non-CC fantasy that has no connection to Wizards is surprisingly strong. This is the first significant 'walk away' B/X compatible game. We have had other games like Dragonsbane and Forbidden Lands, but they are a few steps removed from the B/X core style of play. Some games, like the new Swords & Wizardry, are Creative Commons games and still have that lineage. This is the first major 'walk away' B/X style of game, and it does feel like Shadowdark in a way that appeals to a large core of disaffected fantasy gamers looking for something new.

The demand for high-level play other than 'bigger numbers' and 'planar challenges' is an untapped market. There is an actual demand here for domain management, mass battles, and kingdom building. The "4X style of B/X" is a chronically underserved market. 5E, as designed, is too focused on personal power and that "MMO power curve" for expansion books supporting kingdom management to be effective - since the personal power curve outshines any kingdom management dongle books. When domain management is built into the player power curve - that is a design people take notice of. You must grab land and people to do well at high levels, and power will not just be given to you by the rules.

You must take it.

5E is moving towards this mobile-game model of granting power, giving you a free bastion at level 5, like some sort of MMO player housing, and you wonder where it comes from? Who gave you this? What if I don't want it? Did I even ask for one? The game gave it to you. It is not a part of your story or a world. It is a dialog box that pops up, giving you an 'in-game' award, and when you think about it, all of 5E is based on this design. Nothing earned, everything given.

ACKS is the opposite, assuming a player is engaged with the world. If a borderlands region is being ruled by a collection of terrible, cruel rulers - it is up to you to take the lead and change things. Or not. Still, that collection of towns, population, dense forests, and lost dwarven mines could be the core of a solid and powerful kingdom - given the proper mind to shape it.

That mind comes from the player.

And after poking around in dungeons, you begin to fight the cruel mercenaries these thugs use to keep control of these towns. You begin freeing the towns from tyranny. You begin setting up a government and building your realm. You can choose any policy, should you want to pay for it - free college or healthcare for your people? Universal basic income? Overtaxed monarchy? Colonialist power? Evil kingdom or good? Warmonger or peacemaker? The game does not tell you what politics to have. All of this is your choice; just be able to pay for it in terms of gold and blood.

And if there are kingdoms out there you disagree with, like that colonialist slave-owning kingdom next door - they become the next target. Again, the game does not tell you what politics to have, so whatever you believe or think would be fun to try to make work, you can try to make it happen. If there are certain government types you do not like - make them the bad guys.

You can play high-level games without running a domain, but having a domain makes high-level play much easier and faster to advance in. You get to play with all sorts of cool things, like magical research. If an evil dungeon appears, handle it yourself, or put a 10,000gp bounty on clearing it from your treasury and watch the adventurers rush in.

Congratulations on the spectacular start of ACKS 2, and I hope this rises to extraordinary new heights. We need a solid non-OGL B/X alternative game, and this one is getting a lot of interest and excitement. If you are in the campaign, help spread the word! Talk about the campaign, and let's get the word out there about this eye-opening start!

ACKS 2 Kickstarter Live!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/adventurer-conqueror-king-system-imperial-imprint-acks-ii

The ACKS 2 Kickstarter is live! They have an early-bird special for backers today, so if you are interested or want to support this, now is the time.

I like this game; it is finally breaking away from the OGL and doing its own thing. The OGL mess is turning out to be great for creators who break away and decide to write from their hearts and realize the dreams for their world that do not involve other people's IP.

This is one of the first major B/X games to make the break, and this version is leaning heavily into the middle and end games into conquering and domain management. This is one of the first B/X games that do a campaign like Crusader Kings III, letting you go from zero to the ruler and manage mass battles worldwide - and take part on the battlefield as a hero unit.

To see a B/X game break these chains (and maintain compatibility) and do its own thing turns a new page for the OSR. Finally, a game that promises (and delivers) more than just 'high-level adventures' with more math and three-digit numbers.

And sorry, One D&D - giving us a 'bastion' as some sort of lame 'MMO player housing' you automatically get at the 5th level is just lame. I would prefer to clear the surrounding area, pay for construction and staffing, and have that stronghold become the capital of a new nation. And I want rules to support kingdom building and management to the maximum level - and for my hero to take part in battles.

I don't want a freebie gimmie (likely used to sell you VTT cosmetics); I want full rules and support to live that dream. The fact that a company that makes billions of dollars won't even touch domain management (even as an add-on), but a small OGL-free Kickstarter game can, is telling.

Demand more from your fantasy gaming.

Very excited about this!

ACKS II Announcement

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

From the latest Ascendent email update, we got a lot of information for the ACKS 2 project and its goals, quoted below. This information comes from Autarch via that email:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/adventurer-conqueror-king-system-imperial-imprint-acks-ii

I also need to make a special announcement - a new Kickstarter! If you enjoyed Ascendant for its robust simulation of a superhero world, you might be interested in my latest game, the Adventurer Conqueror King System Imperial Imprint (ACKS II), will be crowdfunding on Kickstarter on October 24, 2023. 

Built on over a decade of additional playtesting and hundreds of hours of methodical research and development, ACKS II is a three-volume D20 fantasy RPG squarely focused on the long-neglected simulationist gamer.

Since the inception of the Old School Renaissance in 2008, there have been countless retro-clones of D20 fantasy games.  Any gamer seeking an old-school RPG has a thousand options. But ACKS II isn't like any of those games. Because with ACKS II you get:

Endgame action that's more than just a treadmill of higher HD foes. Build and run domains, conquer your enemies in grand wars, break the laws of magic with ritual experiments,  run a criminal syndicate, even anoint yourself a god and empower yourself with the worship of your loyal subjects. The experience point mechanics integrate campaign activities into the core gameplay loop, enabling your character to level up in new ways as his temporal power grows!

Epic pitched battles as grand as any in fiction or history. Don't settle for so-called "mass combat" rules that can't handle battles bigger than a few hundred combatants. With ACKS II you can field armies that measure in the hundreds of thousands and fight hordes that make the earth shiver.

Integrated in-game economics that make sense. Naysayers will claim that fantasy adventure worlds can never have plausible in-game economies. ACKS II proves them wrong with a robust economic system that's easy to use because we've done all the heavy lifting for you.

Sandbox setting design that emphasizes player agency. Our clear,  comprehensive  (and comprehensible!) guidelines, based on the top down zoom-in method in our book Arbiter of Worlds, help your world come to life.

Fractal design with modular rules. ACKS II is designed to let you focus on what matters to your campaign, diving as deeply as you want into any area of the game knowing that it just works at every level.

Customizable and transparent construction tools. We open up the hood and let you see how the ACKS II engine runs. Build your own custom classes, spells, magic types, monsters, and more, knowing that anything you create will mesh well and balance properly with the canon material.

Fearsome fighters that can change the course of a pitched battle.  Say goodbye to "quadratic mages and linear fighters" and embrace epic heroism. Combat mechanics for cleaves, sweep attacks, and special maneuvers allow your fighters to conduct a symphony of slaughter on the battlefield.

Thrilling thieves that lead the way in dungeon delves and urban adventures.  In ACKS II, thieves are skilled experts from level one. With special mechanics for shadowy senses, hasty searching, hijinks, and more, thieves can finally steal the spotlight.

Whatever you've ever wanted to do in a fantasy world -- ACKS II already does that.

Do you want to play a game with the breadth, depth, and verisimilitude of Ascendant optimized for sandbox play in a fantasy world? If that's what you want... Then ACKS II is for you. 

Three volumes? That is news to me, wow.

Many of these concepts I watched develop in the zine-like releases from the Axioms expansions. I love the higher-level magical experimentation of mages that makes the class feel more than a cloth-armored artillery piece. Running your own dungeon to breed monsters, create crossbreeds, and lure in foolish adventurers is a playstyle.

It feels like a grand epic game of Crusader Kings at the high levels, which is amazing.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

I am excited for this game. Very few B/X clones do the high-level game that BECMI tried to simulate and do it right with an even distribution of 'fun stuff' to get involved with for every class. There is a trading game with a trading-focused class, which opens up a whole new area of play for OSR gaming.

And they are going all-in on their world for sandbox play. If you want to support your own, it works, but having a GTA-style sandbox to play in with the classes and themes strongly supported is a plus.

ACKS is my 'serious B/X' game and completely replaces 5E. For me, 5E focuses too much on blinders-on-player power, and the world is not part of your experience. With ACKS, the world is a part of your character, making a huge difference in motivation. As your character levels up, parts of the game unlock, and your class affects the campaign world - however you choose to do so.

Almost no B/X game does this, slowly turning into an epic sandbox wargame at high levels.

I am super-excited about this game, one of my most-anticipated of 2023.

ACKS Feels Epic

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

Even without waiting for version 2, the base ACKS game is worth your time. This is one of the best implementations of B/X with a unified resolution mechanic and sticks to the original level 1 to 14 range. Not many B/X implementations can really say how levels above 14 are meaningful and relevant to any story you can tell beyond 'the bigger numbers stories.'

This is a massive problem with many B/X versions and games like 5E and Pathfinder 2. These games lazily assume you are an adventurer 'all the way up,' and your role in the world never changes. You sleep at the same inns, search for higher-level holes in the ground, and your gold becomes a worthless pile shoved in some bag of holding. If a game can't explain high-level play, high-level characters are meaningless, and the game falls into the MMO trap.

ACKS 1.0 is built from the ground up for domain-level play.

If the high-level game is there, it reflects down to level one. Every decision you make at level one matters. Did you make enemies from levels 1-3? If so, those enemies or their allies will likely come back later during domain-level play to cause significant trouble for the lands you are trying to settle.

In standard B/X games, my low-level adventures don't matter. I can stumble around in various 'theme park ride' dungeons, hit that 'what's next' point at level 5, and then wait for an adventure module to give me something to do. It is all about acquiring personal power, right? Power solves any problem!

That disconnected nature of the traditional B/X and 5E adventurer bugs me, and it is as if you can level in a world and never affect it, nor would it ever know about you. All the powers come 'built in' to your class in 5E, so you don't need anyone or anything - only experience points.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

ACKS is my 'serious B/X,' whereas a game like Dungeon Crawl Classics is my 'gonzo B/X,' the games have different feelings and experiences.

Every other fantasy game has melted away with this combination. 5E is not on my shelves anymore. Pathfinder 2 is boxed up and getting sold. Old School Essentials is excellent, but it does not have the depth of ACKS. Playing 5E is like eating chicken nuggets; they are tasty but not nutritious or healthy. Ultimately, I feel the same empty feeling after, like I didn't do anything except push a character up a predefined power curve.

5E and Pathfinder 2 share that problem. They are designed like an MMO with no high-level campaign support. In an MMO, level 10 feels like level 30 feels like level 50. Your power feels like it is on a downward curve. Death is impossible. Your character does the same things. It is the same dungeon with a few more zeros on the numbers.

In the 1980s, we played games that made us more intelligent and mature, challenged us to read history, and expanded our worldview. Many of today's tabletop RPGs feel like vapid and empty video games, only existing for a designer-delivered power curve that delivers zero mental challenge and stimulation.

Or the feeling of dramatic importance.

ACKS 2 Kickstarter: October 24

The ACKS 2 Kickstarter begins on October 24.

This is a game I am really looking forward to, and I may go all-in on the pledge. I hope they have a leather-cover version. From what I see in the preview documents, we are getting renamed spells and many clarifications and improvements. We are also getting a lot of focus on domain management, along with better integration between the character and domain parts of the book.

This is the same game, just organized and clarified quite a bit and de-OGL'ed. Finally, the chains are broken. These days, I see de-OGL'ed games as more attractive than the OGL-holdouts, just because this gives designers a license to be free and express new ideas and deliver improvements to the experience - rather than endlessly repeating the past.

From my reading, ACKS 1e characters and games will convert right in with minimal effort. A few things will change, like spelling names and other OGL pieces of debris, but we are getting so much more to replace those old ideas.

ACKS 1e is still playable and worth experiencing. I have a game running, and like how it runs and feels.

If there is one thing the OGL disaster taught us, it is to never hold on to the past so tightly we end up being screwed by it. Time to move on. Do new things. And toss D&D aside for games that speak to who we are, our interests, and the worlds we like to build. That D&D Multiverse is as much a dead-end and overused idea as the Marvel one is. Don't hitch your wagon to a dying horse and a 2020s fad.

ACKS is a unique slice of history based on the Middle Ages style of the world instead of the overused faux-modern Renaissance. This is the era of domain building, before the nation-state and colonialism -  when the old Roman Empire fell, and those with dreams, armies, and gold could forge a kingdom. Most of the world can be an unknown, savage place where the ruins of the old, corrupt Empire slither, worshipping their other-worldly and reptilian gods while civilization and order try to beat back the darkness.

0e through 5E? Those games don't do that. ACKS leans into conquering and kingdom building, like a game of Crusader Kings and another great game set in the same era. Games like Shadowdark, Swords & Wizardry, and Old School Essentials focus on dungeons.

What if I want more?

An add-on book for 5E may do kingdom management, but it isn't tightly integrated into the base game. You will run into problems with cities lit with continual light, permanent gates to planes, and the power of characters being more remarkable than any civilization - comparatively.

ACKS 2 drops in a few weeks, and I can't wait.

ACKS 2 Development

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

I have been following the development of ACKS II on the Patreon page, and I like what I am seeing a lot. This feels like a B/X style game keeping true to the core concepts, but tossing out the OGL and the tired old tropes of the past and doing something new. The game feels cut-free, and the original source material and inspiration shine through.

It is developing into this unique, flavorful, Middle Ages meets B/X style game of its own.

A lot of games 'copy Conan' or 'copy John Carter' and I have dozens of settings and games on my shelf that feel like uninspired 'Clonean the Samearian' style settings. ACKS, and even more so, ACKS 2, are different. This is pure Middle Ages goodness; none of this pseudo-Renaissance modern-world as fantasy BS that we have been force-fed the last few years.

You know, these fantasy settings where everyone walks around with modern attitudes and dress, in a Renaissance world minus the colonialism and slavery that made that era so affluent and progressive in the first place.

One wonderful part about ACKS is the answer to the question, what are your sourcebooks for adventures? The answer is simple: real books about history. I don't need to buy pretentious modules you only buy for the two subclass options and four feats so you can build overpowered game characters. My adventure stories come from actual events that actually happened. And I am learning as I play, not living in some Disney version of the Renaissance.

The quality of the game and experience isn't this 'several photocopies down the line' of some adventure written in the 1970s that copied something in a book, that got changed several times over seven editions of the game, and finally made it to you in some strange 'processed food' version of idea that comes off like a meal made out of dehydrated food in a cardboard box.

The original authors of the fantasy novels in the 1950s and '60s read history and based their fantasy books on this source material. We have much better access to books like this today, so nothing stops you from going straight to the source and getting inspired here. If you are getting inspired by your typical adventure modules from games like 5E, you are not getting anything nutritious for your brain.

Either go straight to history or the original adventure books in Appendix N and go straight to the source. Even if the history books you read today are highly political in their bias - and you can recognize that - you will still be getting better information and inspiration than Keep on the Borderlands.

Stick to first (history) or second-generation (Appendix N) sources; your games will mean so much more to you than the corporate filler we get these days.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

Granted, the ACKS version is more fantasy-world than actual history, but replace one particularly nasty or violent side of a conflict with orcs or beast-men, and you have an adventure. Flavor a political conflict with magic, and you are there. Make a wealthy lord a dragon with a domain and brutal mercenaries in his service, and there you go. Corrupt a monastery with a secret sect of evil magic instead of corruption, and the story works.

And you are using your imagination, and applying history to your game.

The low-level play? Not that much different than B/X. The pieces you play with are not generic; they are these specific elements of Middle Ages history that feel a lot more honest and real than your typical fantasy game. I love generic fantasy like Old School Essentials or Swords & Wizardry, but these can feel too generic like they are simulating playing a game with the serial numbers filed off.

And yes, I know the next two images of my library are more Renaissance-themed, but they highlight a few important points. One, we are being lied to that the Renaissance was a progressive era and fantasy games use a sanitized version of this time. Two, even Renaissance settings can have amazing conflicts, adventures, and motivations. Considering this is where the Middle Ages ended up (post-plague), the forces that made this era the mess it was were rooted in a Middle Ages ACKS-style setting.

Colonialism, the corrupt church, the global order, monetary systems, slavery for capital, knowledge only for the wealthy, the media, and the nation-state were forces that had their roots planted in the Middle Ages. You can start these plots and stories here in an infant form and have them seem like the 'dark forces' rising through the world. By the Renaissance it was too late, they had already taken over the world and created the one we live in today.

Teach yourself the history you were denied in school.

What am I doing? What type of story am I telling?

What does this all mean, really?

What means more? Coming back to town with 100gp and a +1 mace, or retelling the story of a prince denied his rule and banished to a hostile land? Something that really happened in history, but you are retelling that story, and yours may have a different outcome. Are you dealing with a generic 'fantasy temple' or a corrupt institutionalized religion full of debauchery and corruption? Is there a crusade against evil that is constantly recruiting and raising funds in this land? What land are they fighting in? Are there corrupt slavers in this world sanctioned by the king because the resources they give the kingdom keep the royals in power?

At what price is your soul worth?

Would you fight them?

Just simple questions like this pulled from just the covers of history books are so much more interesting than anything put out by today's game companies, often off fifth or sixth-generation sources, so far down the line they are barely meaningful and understandable. Once you open the books, you discover so much more it makes mainstream games look like consumerist garbage in comparison.

Why are there goblins in this cave?

Is the answer they are just there for you to kill and take their treasure?

Do you even care why?